Guddu Rangeela Movie Review

They say that ‘Fate and fortunes changes every Friday’ in Bollywood and there is no one to predict what every passing Friday can do to a star and a film. It is mainly because of the ongoing Ramzan season, that not many filmmakers are risking releasing their films during this season. This week sees the release of the comedy drama GUDDU RANGEELA alongwith the Hollywood biggie TERMINATOR GENISYS. Will GUDDU RANGEELA be able to ‘terminate’ all the odds and prove to be a blockbuster at the box-office or will it lose its ‘colours’ at the box-office, let’s analyze.

The film, that’s set in Haryana, starts off with the ‘musical introduction’ of the cousin brothers Gulshan Ram aka Guddu (Amit Sadh) and Radheshyam aka Rangeela (Arshad Warsi), alongwith the terror spilling villainous local political leader Billo (Ronit Roy). At the outset, while Guddu and Rangeela are the members of a local village orchestra party, they also moonlight as khabris (informers) for the local gangs. In one such case, the duo gets embroiled into a controversy that lands them at the police station. The corrupt inspector strikes a deal with them stating either they can pay Rs. 10 lakhs to him and go scot free or be a party to many pending cases, thus landing in jail. Hope for them come in the form of Bengali, who is a self confessed ‘PRO’ for the underworld. He strikes a deal with them to ‘transport’ (read ‘kidnap’) the deaf and mute Baby (Aditi Rao Hydari) in exchange for a sum of ten lakh rupees. Being ‘opportunists’ the duo grab this offer with both their hands, only to be shocked to know that Baby has a hidden agenda. On probing, she reveals that she (who is Billo’s estranged sister-in-law) wants to avenge the death of her sister from Billo, who had tortured and killed her because of dowry. Its only then the viewers are treated to Rangeela’s past life and the (personal) reason as to why he too wants to kill Billo. While Baby hands over a CD of Billo’s sexual acts with women to Guddu and Rangeela, Billo reveals something that not only shocks Rangeela, but also turns his world upside down. Do Guddu and Rangeela become successful in exhibiting Billo’s evil character through the CD, do they manage to get the ransom money for kidnapping, what is the reason for Rangeela wanting to kill Billo and what is it that Billo reveals to Rangeela that leaves him speechless is what forms the rest of the film.

Let’s talk about the film now. The sad part about this film is that its director Subhash Kapoor, whose last film was the award winning JOLLY LLB, fails to live upto the expectations. While GUDDU RANGEELA does have its moments under the sun, the film fails to leave the desired impact by the time it ends. There are many reasons for the same, which includes typical revenge story, lack of romance, no good humor and bad music. While the film’s first half sets up the pace, scale and the momentum of the film, it is the second half that starts lagging mid-way, which acts as a speed breaker in the film’s progress. And its Subhash Kapoor’s direction and wavering storyline that needs to be blamed for a major chunk of this.

As far as the performances are concerned, no prizes for guessing as to who is the ‘hero’ of the film. Right from the word go, the film gets steered up by Arshad Warsi (who is a veteran in such kind of roles). He very effortlessly steals the thunder from everyone alike. Despite his towering presence in the film, Warsi is unable to create the bonding with Amit Sadh the way he had done with Sanjay Dutt in the iconic MUNNABHAI series. GUDDU RANGEELA also sees the resurfacing of Amit Sadh after KAI PO CHE. Amit, who tries to put in his best performance, seems to be struggling amidst the film and there isn’t enough meat to his role. As far as Aditi Rao Hydari is concerned, despite having the much required screen presence, she suffers from the lack of screen space in the film that is predominantly dominated by Arshad Warsi, Amit Sadh and Ronit Roy. As far as Ronit Roy is concerned, one feels that it is about time that he breaks from the stereotyping of such ‘harder-than-thou’ roles. His role in GUDDU RANGEELA seems to be more like a repeat act of what he did in BOSS. He however delivers a strong performance and carries the film with Arshad Warsi.

While the film suffers from the lack of memorable music (Amit Trivedi, Subhash Kapoor), it is the film’s background music (Hitesh Sonik) that helps the film progress. The film also suffers at the hands of its editing (Arindam Ghatak), which could have helped the film from lagging at many places, especially during the second half and the climax. The film’s action scenes (Pradyuman Kumar) are average. The shaky camera notwithstanding in a handful of places, the film’s cinematography (James Fowlds) too is very average

On the whole, GUDDU RANGEELA is quite ‘colourless’ and offers nothing new.